The Crowd
The Handler Part 2: A man no one sees by day becomes the Handler by night, building a theatre of control in the glass room while longing for a single unmasked touch.
The Handler
Daniel Manning disappears in daylight.
He works, eats, sleeps, folds laundry in silence. To neighbours he is polite, forgettable, barely there.
But when night falls, he steps into the glass room.
Gloved, unflinching, he becomes The Handler ~ ringmaster of the city’s most secretive sex club.
He commands gangbangs like orchestras, baptises men in sweat and piss, fists them open until their bodies become prayer. The crowd presses against the glass, hungry, whispering his name.
He is worshipped at night. Invisible by day.
And beneath it all, Daniel aches for one thing he cannot command.
Love.
Eight parts. Eight rituals. One man split in two.
Read Part One of The Handler
The Crowd ~ Part Two of The Handler
At night, he commands a room with silence. At dawn, he eats alone.
As The Handler orchestrates a ritual of bodies pressed to glass, Daniel Manning folds into shadow, adored by many, touched by none.
One moment of tenderness slips through. The crowd mistakes it for theatre.
But Daniel knows the truth:
Control is not the same as connection. And the ache only grows.
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The dryers rumbled below, an endless churn that shook the floorboards with the rhythm of someone else’s routine. Daniel stirred slowly in his sheets, listening to it. The sound had a kind of authority, like it belonged more to the building than he ever had.
He pushed the blanket off and sat up. The mattress sighed beneath him, as though disappointed. Bare feet found cold lino, toes curling for a moment before flattening into the day.
No toast this morning. No coffee. Just plain cereal. He poured it dry into the chipped bowl with the faded cherries, spooned it in without milk, and sat on the edge of the table like a tenant in his own life. Each bite crunched too loudly. He paused between mouthfuls, chewing slowly, the silence swallowing the sound anyway.
The window was cracked, letting in a thread of air that smelled faintly of metal and dust. The morning sun hit only the corner of the countertop. It was already too warm.
He waited a few minutes longer, chewing slower now, letting the seconds stretch. Then he stood, bowl still in hand, and opened the sliding door to the balcony.
The rail was empty.
He stepped out anyway. No cat. No faint thump of paws, no blink of copper eyes. The chipped bowl from yesterday was still there, untouched. A few ants crawled the rim.
Daniel set his cereal down beside it and crouched. Waited.
Nothing.
A name had never come to him for the creature. “Cat” was as close as he got. Naming something made it real. Made it yours. And this wasn’t his. Just something that had shown up one night and then… kept showing up. Until now.
He stayed crouched, elbows on knees, back against the balcony door, and stared at the bowl like it might explain itself. The morning moved without him. Somewhere below, a truck reversed. A child cried and was told to stop. The city didn’t wait for quiet moments to matter.
Back inside, he rinsed the cereal bowl and set it upside down in the rack. Then he washed it again. There was nothing left on it. Still, he washed it again.
Order made sense.
He stood in the middle of the flat for a moment, hands damp, unsure where to put them. The silence inside pressed in now, thick and noticing. It wasn’t just quiet. It was attention. The walls seemed to watch him. The clock didn’t tick. Even the fridge hummed softly, as if trying not to disturb.
He breathed in. Out. The way they did when preparing to enter the glass room. It didn’t work here.
He looked to the balcony again, half-hoping for the light weight of paws, the familiar outline waiting. Still nothing.
The rail remained bare.
Daniel turned away, and the silence followed.
The knock wasn’t loud. Just a firm rap, measured, like the person behind it expected no resistance. Daniel froze mid-push-up, chest hovering inches above the floor. Sweat rolled down his cheek.
Another knock. Then a pause. Then the voice.
“Mr Manning?”
Daniel exhaled, let his body drop. The lino kissed his skin with familiar indifference. He rose quickly, grabbing a towel as he crossed the small flat. He didn’t wipe himself, just draped it around his neck like a peace offering.
The door opened on the chain.
His landlord leaned into the gap. A man built like an ageing brick, tan jacket with flaking sleeves, clipboard in one hand, biro poised like a threat. He smelled of cheap deodorant and paper receipts.
“Sorry to bother you. Just had another complaint.”
Daniel blinked. Said nothing.
“That bloody thumping every morning,” the man continued. “Sounds like a herd of elephants doing laps above the dryers. I’ve had the tenants downstairs whingeing again. Unit two. You know the girl with the pram?”
Daniel nodded slowly.
“Well, she reckons it wakes the baby. And I’ve had enough noise complaints this year to wallpaper the stairwell.”
Daniel opened his mouth. Closed it. The Handler’s voice was already there… coiled in his chest like a spring. All it would take was one word. One shift in tone. You’ll leave now. Just like at the bar. Just like in the glass room.
But this wasn’t his room. It was barely his flat. A rented box stacked over steam and sweat. He tightened his jaw and spoke, low.
“I’ll keep it down.”
The landlord scribbled something, nodded like he’d won. “Appreciate it. Don’t want to be a hard-arse, just… you know, people need peace in the mornings.”
Daniel nodded again. Said nothing else.
The landlord lingered a second too long, as if expecting gratitude. Then he backed away down the hall, shoes squeaking with each step.
Daniel closed the door. Didn’t lock it immediately. Just stood there, hand still on the knob, breath tight.
The Handler could command a room with a gesture. Could bring men to their knees with a glance. Could stop someone mid-thrust with a single word.
And yet here, he said “I’ll keep it down” like a boy being scolded for walking too loud.
He turned slowly, crossed back to the middle of the flat, and dropped to the floor again. Push-up position. Elbows locked. Spine straight.
He didn’t move.
He just hovered there, muscles tense, breath steady, eyes on the grain of the lino, and imagined pressing the landlord’s face against the glass. Not in violence. Just… in silence. Just to watch him squirm under the weight of it.
The Handler would never have to say sorry for being loud.
But Daniel Manning did. And he had.
He needed coffee, but didn’t want to make it.
The flat still held the shape of the landlord’s voice, echoing slightly in the corners. Even with the window open and the fan whirring, the air felt stale. Daniel dressed slowly, pulling on a clean shirt, running water through his hair until it stopped curling at the back. He didn’t look in the mirror.
The café was just across the road, a corner place with dusty awnings and faded chalkboard signs that always said something cheerful about croissants. Inside, the hum of grinders and milk steamers masked the awkward silences that lived in most places Daniel entered.
He waited in line behind a man in Lycra who ordered a smoothie with almond butter and spoke too loudly into his AirPods. When it was Daniel’s turn, the barista, a slim man with dimpled cheeks and a ring through one brow, gave him a smile that stuck.
“Hey. Morning. Flat white?”
Daniel hesitated. Then nodded. “Thanks.”
The barista rang it up and paused just slightly too long. “You live a few floors above the laundromat, yeah?”
Daniel nodded again. The man seemed about to ask something else, maybe about the cat, maybe about noise, maybe about nothing at all, but Daniel looked down and fished coins from his pocket. The silence bloomed.
“Coming right up,” the barista said, recovering.
Daniel stepped aside and waited near the window.
Two men sat in the corner booth, toast between them, one barefoot and laughing like it was allowed. The other man brushed crumbs from his beard, then touched the back of his companion’s neck as he leaned in to whisper something. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t theatrical. It was casual and unguarded, the kind of touch that had no audience.
Daniel looked away before the ache could finish forming.
His coffee came in a paper cup. He muttered thanks and stepped outside, the door jingling in a way that felt performative. Back in the daylight, he stood under the awning, sipping slowly, the milk too hot, the cup slightly overfilled and already dripping onto his knuckle.
He didn’t go anywhere for a while. Just stood on the footpath, watching buses hiss past and pigeons wheel above the rooftop where the cat sometimes slept. The thought came sudden and sharp: Did I scare it off?
He walked home too quickly, the way you do when trying not to run from yourself.
Back inside, the flat was still. The coffee cooled on the bench. Daniel peeled off his shirt and dropped to the floor, picking up the dumbbells. His body remembered the rhythm even as his mind tried to outrun it.
Twelve reps. Pause. Twelve more. He counted under his breath like prayer beads. At fourteen, he lost the count. Started again.
The landlord’s words still sat under his skin. The couple in the café still floated behind his eyes.
In daylight, he could lift until his arms shook, but nothing in the room would change.
Control only lived in the dark.
The sun had dipped behind the buildings by the time Daniel stepped onto the street again.
He walked the long way.
Not for the view. Not for delay. Just… to stretch the gap between the man who’d folded laundry and the man who would not be told to be quiet.
Evening settled like steam over the city. The air smelled of warm concrete and faint exhaust. He passed a noodle shop where the same server never looked up. A corner where two teenagers kissed like they hadn’t yet learned restraint. A shuttered convenience store that kept its lights on anyway.
He didn’t look at anyone. But he felt everything. The scrape of a scooter wheel, the bass from a passing car, the weight of other people’s touch hanging in the air like a perfume he hadn’t earned.
The nightclub door waited between the pawnshop and the boarded café. No sign. Just a slab of steel with a vertical handle, matte black, reflecting nothing.
He knocked once, three quick, one pause, one long.
The door clicked. The pulse hit him immediately.
Bass like breath. Light like blood.
Inside: red haze, violet gleam. Men moved in slow orbit around the central stage, faces turned toward the curtained glass room like worshippers before a veiled altar. Some were already shirtless. Others lingered in dark corners, fingers brushing thighs, waiting for the signal that hunger was allowed.
No one looked at Daniel. Not yet. That was the point.
In the staff corridor, the music thinned. He entered the changeroom, fluorescent lights buzzing slightly overhead. A row of lockers. One marked with a single black sticker: no name, just a circle.
His hands didn’t shake. They never did here.
The locker opened clean. Inside: everything in place. Harness polished. Gloves folded like prayer. Boots freshly oiled. The mask, curved and sharp, catching only the barest trace of light.
He undressed methodically. Shirt off, jeans pooled, trainers kicked under the bench. He folded each item. Not out of habit. Out of ritual. The man he was did not belong in this space.
Boots first. He laced them tight, tugging until they bit his ankles. Then the harness. Black leather over bare chest, buckled in stages, torso flattened, breath trained. He exhaled once. Felt the shift.
The gloves were next. Supple. Slick. They slid on like skin he’d earned.
Finally, the mask.
It pressed across his brow and nose, buckled tight. His vision narrowed. The room shifted. Not smaller, but more exact. Focused.
He stood. Not Daniel now.
Just presence. Stillness. Gravity.
The Handler walked through the back hallway into the club proper. Conversation dipped as he passed. No announcement needed. No spotlight. The crowd simply parted.
He entered the glass room. The curtain hadn’t lifted yet, but the crowd had already gathered outside, their breath fogging the panes.
Some mouthed his name. Others just stared.
The Handler did not acknowledge them.
He stood in the centre.
The curtain rose with a whisper.
Outside the glass, the crowd hushed as one body. Dozens of men pressed forward, faces flushed under the red light, their breath catching at the sight of him.
The Handler did not move.
Stillness was his first command.
A beat passed. Then another.
From the far edge of the stage, two attendants stepped forward, dressed in dark cotton, faces anonymous. Between them walked the chosen man.
Young. Maybe twenty-three. Maybe older. The stage made age difficult. His chest glistened under oil, shoulders square, but not stiff. His mouth was set in something close to peace. He moved barefoot, each step silent, as though the floor welcomed him.
He paused at the edge of the glass room and bowed his head.
The crowd barely exhaled. The silence was a weight they held together.
The Handler watched without expression. His gloved hands remained loose at his sides. He did not beckon. He did not speak.
The submissive moved forward anyway.
He crossed the centre of the room and knelt.
One smooth motion. Back straight. Hands open on his thighs. His breathing was fast, but controlled, visible only in the way his chest rose and fell against the light.
The Handler stepped forward once. The sound of his boot striking the floor was enough to send a ripple through the crowd. No one spoke. No one dared.
He circled the man slowly. One full revolution. Inspecting. Measuring. The oil on the submissive’s skin caught the low light and made his form shimmer faintly, as though carved from something molten.
Still, The Handler did not touch.
He stopped behind him. Gloved fingers lifted. Hovered.
Then, gently, he placed one hand on the man’s shoulder.
The submissive exhaled sharply. His spine softened. Shoulders lowered. That single point of contact grounded him.
The Handler let the weight of his hand speak. Not pressure, presence.
Then his voice, low and exact:
“Breathe.”
The man obeyed instantly. His chest filled, slow and deep, the movement expanding through every part of him. A ripple of exhalation passed through the crowd outside, as though their lungs moved with his.
The Handler withdrew his hand.
He walked to the table at the room’s edge. A small bowl waited. Ceramic. Matte black. Filled with oil that shimmered like lacquer. Beside it, a cloth. A bottle. A single black ring.
He ignored them for now.
Instead, he dipped his gloved fingers into the oil. The sound was faint but audible, a slick draw, wet leather parting viscous surface. He coated his right hand first. Then the left. Each motion slow. Intentional. His movements visible through the glass, offered like a sermon.
The crowd leaned closer.
The Handler lifted his hands slightly, letting the red light catch the gleam. He did not perform. He prepared.
The submissive remained kneeling. Still. Ready.
The room held its breath.
Ritual had begun.
The Handler turned, gloved hands dripping with oil, and raised his chin.
The crowd outside the glass responded before he spoke. They knew.
A ripple passed through them, men stepping back from the pane, forming a line without instruction. Some were already hard. Others stroked slowly as they moved. Leather creaked. Zippers opened. Eyes fixed only on him.
Inside the room, the submissive did not turn. He stayed kneeling, head bowed, posture held in a careful tension: not begging, but offering.
The Handler walked the perimeter of the glass room once more. As he moved, the first man in line stepped forward. Tall, broad, chest hair matted with sweat. His cock curved heavy from a harness at his waist, slicked already.
The Handler paused beside him, outside the glass. Their eyes didn’t meet, that wasn’t necessary. Instead, The Handler tilted his head slightly. A signal.
The man nodded once.
Inside, The Handler turned to the submissive. His voice was low, but the crowd could feel its shape through the pane.
“Face the glass.”
The submissive obeyed. He crawled forward, knees careful on the hard floor, until he reached the centre wall. His palms pressed to the glass. He rested his forehead there too, exhaling as if it might help him dissolve.
The Handler moved behind him, knelt once, and placed both gloved hands on the submissive’s thighs.
“Open.”
The man spread his knees.
The Handler’s thumbs slid over the oiled skin of his inner thighs, parting them further. The glass captured the reflection of the submissive’s exposed body, his hole already twitching with anticipation, his cock gently swaying, full and flushed.
The Handler stood and extended one gloved hand to the first man in line. A gesture. A decree.
The man stepped inside. The crowd outside shivered as though they’d felt it too.
No words were exchanged.
The Handler pointed to the submissive’s hips. The man took position. He adjusted himself, aligned slowly, and then, with a low grunt, pressed in.
The submissive gasped, breath fogging the glass instantly. His palms stayed planted. His spine arched slightly, the curve catching the red light like a blade.
“Hold him open,” The Handler said. “Let them see.”
The man behind reached down, gripped the submissive’s cheeks, and spread him wider. The Handler placed a palm flat to the small of the submissive’s back, anchoring him.
The second man in line stepped closer to the glass. Already leaking.
Outside, the watchers began to press forward again, bodies close to the pane, eyes wide, breath visible in the low light. No one spoke. They didn’t have to. The rules were made by silence.
Inside, rhythm began. Flesh against flesh. Sound layered over breath, over fogging glass, over the faint creak of leather gloves resting on the submissive’s hips.
The Handler stood behind them both.
He did not fuck. He did not touch himself.
He conducted.
The Handler raised one gloved hand… just a lift of fingers, and the man inside the submissive stilled mid-thrust.
Outside the glass, dozens mirrored the pause. Like strings cut. Like breath held in reverence.
The Handler nodded once.
The man withdrew, slow and steady. The submissive whimpered but didn’t move. His palms stayed braced, his knees shaking faintly. Sweat slid down his sides in narrow lines.
The second man in line entered. Younger, leaner. He glanced once at The Handler before stepping inside the chamber. No words. He positioned himself, guided in with practiced pressure.
The sound was slick, obscenely soft, a push into a space already opened, already gasping.
The Handler adjusted his stance by a single step. He said:
“Slower.”
The man obeyed.
Outside the glass, someone groaned. Not from climax. From want. The kind of sound that happens in prayer when the hunger becomes unbearable.
The Handler moved to the side of the submissive now. He crouched, a rare break in height, and placed one gloved palm to the man’s thigh. His other hand rose and brushed sweat-matted curls from the submissive’s temple.
Fingers lingered. Slid back. Rested.
Then, gently, The Handler pressed his forehead to the submissive’s.
A single touch. A breath shared.
The submissive trembled, not from penetration now, but from that contact. That closeness. His chest hitched, his hips stilled. His entire body leaned into the gesture as if starved for it.
The room did not break rhythm. The man inside him kept moving, slow, deeper, shallow, then still. But the crowd leaned forward, noses nearly touching the glass, watching that moment of touch with confusion.
They thought it was part of the theatre.
They thought it was for them.
But it wasn’t.
The Handler pulled back, slow. His gloved hand dropped to the submissive’s shoulder and gave one press. Anchor. Assurance. Then he stood again.
A third man entered now. Thicker, older. The line outside shuffled forward without urgency, without sound. Each body was hard, glistening, waiting for the signal.
The Handler rotated his fingers in a small circle.
“Faster.”
The rhythm adjusted.
The submissive grunted now with each thrust, mouth open against the glass, fog blooming with every breath. His cock swung untouched, the head purple, leaking, proof of pleasure without need for contact.
The Handler stepped back to the centre. Boots square on the floor. Arms folded.
He did not need to be close to command.
Each shift of the ritual was exact. The fourth man lasted only moments before the tension forced him to pull away, gasping, climaxing into his own palm. He staggered out, and the next took his place.
The Handler tilted his head slightly, watching the submissive arch again.
It had started as a gangbang.
But it was becoming something more.
By the sixth man, the submissive was trembling.
His thighs slick with sweat and oil. His cock bobbed, heavy and untouched, leaking steadily onto the floor. His chest rose in stuttered gasps, ribs flexing like wings ready to break.
The Handler stood just behind, arms crossed, gloved fingers resting at his elbows. He said nothing. But every shift in tempo was his.
“Deeper,” he had said once.
“Now slower,” another time.
The words were few, but they carved the room into obedience.
Each man in the queue moved as instructed, fucking not for themselves, but for him. Through him. Their thrusts had become sacrament. Their climax was not the point.
The point was worship.
The submissive gasped again, face pressed flat to the fogged glass. His hands curled into fists now. His spine arched so severely it trembled, shaking each time a new body entered him.
Outside the glass, the crowd watched with mouths open, breath caught, hands twitching at belts. No one touched themselves fully. Not yet. They needed permission. They wanted to wait. The performance had become religion.
The Handler approached the submissive from the side. The current man inside him moved with reverent precision, slow, deep strokes, cock gleaming each time it slid out and vanished again.
The Handler crouched, gloved hand resting just below the man’s bellybutton.
He spoke, not to the crowd, not to the others in line. Just to the body wrecked before him.
“Still with me?”
The submissive nodded, barely.
“Good.”
His hand moved to the man’s chest, pressing once over his heart. Then lower. Not to the cock. To the lower belly, just above the root. A grounding touch. Not pleasure. Presence.
The submissive gasped, and with no one touching him, his cock twitched violently and spilled.
A thick stream, pulsing out in jerks, painting the floor, his thighs, the glass. He moaned, long and raw, and pressed his forehead harder to the pane as if it could contain the sound.
The Handler did not move.
The man inside the submissive froze mid-thrust, startled by the orgasm.
The crowd outside exhaled as one.
The Handler stood slowly.
He said nothing, made no gesture, but the line stepped back.
The men still waiting understood.
The ritual was done.
The submissive remained kneeling, trembling, wrecked. His body open, shining. His cock softening now, dripping with its own proof. His hole stretched, used, leaking.
The Handler did not smile. He did not soften.
He walked to the centre of the room, turned to face the crowd, and raised one gloved hand. Not to wave. To present.
The submissive stayed bowed.
The glass fogged. A few men outside whimpered audibly. One mouthed the word Handler like a prayer.
And for a moment, in the red light, with sweat and silence thick in the air, there was nothing but awe.
A soft hiss signalled the closing of the curtain. Black fabric drew across the glass, severing the congregation from its altar.
No one outside moved.
The room had been filled with breath and ache — now it filled with silence. Reverence gave way to hesitation. A few men pressed their palms against the darkened glass one last time. A final offering. Others stepped back slowly, adjusting belts, wiping moisture from their eyes or lips. One man whispered, Thank you, though no one heard it but him.
Inside, the submissive still knelt.
His chest moved in shallow swells. His body remained open, ruined beautifully. Attendants appeared again, silent as shadows, and crouched beside him. One placed a hand on his back. The other reached for a robe.
They wrapped him gently, careful not to wipe away what had been given. His knees buckled as he stood. He let himself be carried. No resistance. No pride. Just surrender.
They led him through the side door, where warm towels and cool water waited.
The Handler remained.
Alone now. In the hush left behind.
The red light dimmed, softening into something closer to shadow. His boots clicked faintly as he walked back toward the centre of the space. Not for the crowd. Not for anyone.
Just to stand in the silence.
His gloves still shone, coated with the oil of touch, the gleam of ritual. He looked down at his hands for a long time.
Then, slowly, deliberately, he peeled one glove off.
The sound was quiet, the soft tack of leather releasing skin, fingers pulling free one at a time. He dropped it on the small steel table.
The second followed. Slower.
His bare hands were flushed pink from heat. Creases marked where the gloves had held tight. His fingertips trembled faintly, like nerves remembering what they’d commanded.
He looked at them as though they weren’t his.
Then turned toward the basin in the corner.
He turned on the tap. Water rushed cold. He plunged both hands under, palms open, scrubbing hard. The oil resisted at first. Clung to the creases. He added soap. Scrubbed again. His nails scratched over his skin, too rough, too fast.
The water clouded. Then cleared. Then ran pink.
He didn’t stop.
Only when the sting turned sharp did he lift his hands, dripping.
He gripped the edge of the basin, head bowed, water falling from his wrists like runoff from rain.
The room no longer smelled of sweat or submission. Just metal and soap.
The Handler was gone.
Daniel stood in his place.
In the mirror above the sink, he caught his own eyes, hollow now, bloodless, washed out by the fluorescent light. No mask. No audience. Just a man.
He dried his hands without care. The towel was too thin. The sting stayed.
At the locker, he unbuckled the harness. Coil by coil, strap by strap, he folded the pieces away.
No one would know he’d been worshipped tonight.
Not on the street. Not in the café. Not in the flat above the laundromat.
Tomorrow, he’d disappear again.
The club door clicked shut behind him. The night took him back like he’d never been anywhere else.
Traffic rolled by with no rhythm. Laughter echoed from a laneway bar. Neon lit the pavement in sickly swathes of red and blue. The bass of the club was gone now, muffled behind concrete and routine. Just noise again. Not heartbeat.
Daniel walked without hurrying. No one glanced at him. A man in a plain grey shirt and cheap trainers. A face no one would hold onto.
A few blocks down, he stopped at a late-night noodle counter. The kind with yellowed photos and too many sauces behind the sneeze guard.
The server didn’t look up. “Special’s pork or veg.”
“Veg.”
The man scooped noodles into a cardboard container. Slapped the lid down. “Twelve bucks.”
Daniel tapped his card. The machine beeped. A transaction, nothing more.
The container was warm in his hands, the steam rising faintly between his fingers. He didn’t bother with cutlery.
He passed a group of boys outside a vape shop, all in trackpants, laughing about something one of them had said. They didn’t notice him. Or if they did, it was only the way people clock shadows, something that might have been there.
On his street, the laundromat’s shutters were down. The neon sign above it buzzed faintly, casting its dull glow across the pavement. It flickered once, then steadied.
Upstairs, the flat was still. As though it had been holding its breath since he left.
He set the noodles on the bench, peeled the lid back, and stared at the steam. He wasn’t hungry. But he ate anyway. A few mouthfuls. The heat hit the raw spots on his tongue. Soy and garlic and something too sweet. He stopped halfway through. Closed the lid.
The quiet pressed in again. Not reverent. Not tense. Just flat. The kind of quiet that doesn’t ask anything of you, because it doesn’t expect you to matter.
He rinsed the container. Not because it needed to be clean, but because leaving it there would mean he’d have to see it again tomorrow. The water ran brown for a second. Then clear.
He dried his hands carefully.
He stepped out onto the balcony.
The rail was empty.
No cat. No copper eyes blinking in the dark. No scratch of claws on concrete. Just wind. Just the city. Just silence.
He stayed for a minute longer than he needed to, scanning the edge of the roof like the shape might suddenly reappear.
It didn’t.
Back inside, he undressed in the dark. Folded his shirt. Kicked off his shoes. Slid beneath the blanket with the care of someone who didn’t want the bed to notice he’d arrived.
His palms still ached faintly. Not from use. From scrubbing.
He closed his eyes.
The crowd was gone. The room was gone. The submissive. The worship. All of it.
Only this remained.
In the glass, they worshipped him.
Here, he could vanish, and no one would notice.
Next in Chapter 3 ~ The Flood
A quiet kindness. A leaking tap. A cat that comes back.
Daniel spends his day unnoticed. He helps a neighbour. He buys groceries. He scrubs the skin he never lets rest. But at night, the glass room fills again. And this time, it flows.
But behind the gloves, Daniel’s hands ache for something gentler. And when he touches the vessel’s hair, it is not theatre. It is tenderness.
They will never know the difference.
🕯️ The Flood comes for them all.
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